THE PHILIPPINES: Cleanup in Manila

For no nation does the U.S. feel such direct responsibility as for the 14-year-old Philippine Republic.
A half-century of U.S. colonial tutelage, generously administered and
gracefully relinquished, has left the Philippines a heritage of
universal suffrage, widespread education, press freedom, managerial
know-how, and a dedication both to the higher principles and some of
the lower practices of American democracy.

This week, as President Dwight Eisenhower flew to Manila, he found the
administration engaged in an activity familiar to machine politicians
in any imperfect democracy: it was frantically trying to clean house
before it faced the voters.